Second Amendment & Gun Control

The latest news coverage, opinion and information on Second Amendment rights and gun control. The Second Amendment states "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed..."

The House approved $50 million in annual federal funding Wednesday to help schools assess their safety risks in the wake of last month's school shooting in Parkland, Florida, as Congress took its first modest steps into the roiling gun debate.
Published
March 14, 2018

President Obama oversaw a steady decline in the number of convictions for firearm offenses that carried mandatory minimum sentences, according to a report released Thursday that underscores the low priority the last administration gave to pursuing gun crimes.

A California high school teacher was placed on paid administrative leave this week after she pointed out an apparent double standard surrounding Wednesday's national school walkout against gun violence.

The chief financial officer at St. Thomas University in South Florida resigned Tuesday amid backlash over her position on the board of trustees for American Outdoor Brands Corporation, the parent company of gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson.

The Chicago Republican Party has filed a complaint against the city's school system over Wednesday's walkouts for gun control, accusing the schools of violating laws against "political indoctrination" on public property.

A high school teacher who also serves as a reserve police officer and city councilman in Northern California accidentally fired a gun inside a classroom during a safety lesson Tuesday afternoon, injuring at least one student.

The acting deputy director of the FBI said Wednesday that the bureau should have done more in the run-up to the Parkland school shooting last month that claimed the lives of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Florida.

D.C. leaders and gun control activists are calling on Sen. Marco Rubio to withdraw his year-old bill that would rescind the District's strict gun laws in the wake of last month's high school shooting in his home state of Florida.

The House will take the first concrete steps Wednesday to respond to last month's Florida school shooting, voting on a bill to cajole local school systems into formulating risk assessments and safety plans.

President Trump's new federal commission on school safety will consider repealing an Obama administration policy that discouraged expelling or suspending unruly students due to concerns that such disciplinary actions unfairly target minorities.

President Trump is creating a federal commission on school safety, ordering a review of the FBI tip line that ignored warnings about the man who is accused of killing 17 people at a Florida high school, and encouraging states to arm more qualified adults so schools are less vulnerable to attacks, administration officials said Sunday night.

The Justice Department officially submitted a new rule to the White House Saturday to ban the possession or sale of bump stocks, which can make semiautomatic firearms fire at the rate of automatic weapons.

The National Rifle Association has given more than $7 million in grants to hundreds of U.S. schools in recent years, according to an Associated Press analysis, but few have shown any indication that they'll follow the lead of businesses that are cutting ties with the group following last month's massacre at a Florida high school.

But Karen Mallard didn't destroy her rifle. Instead she turned a perfectly legal firearm into an illegal sawed-off rifle. She also triggered a formal investigation by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Some states have rushed to enact stricter gun laws in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school massacre, but Congress is still in pre-debate mode, with plenty of proposals attracting bipartisan support but no firm commitments from Republican leaders to bring any major gun bills to the floor.

The deadly 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School inspired a Wisconsin woman to create a gunshot alarm system that alerts those in a building to the sound of gunfire and notifies emergency responders.

President Trump on Thursday praised Florida's legislature for the gun bill it approved this week, and took credit for provisions that would allow some school staff to carry concealed weapons to be used to deter shootings.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Lindsey Graham announced legislation Thursday that would create a new federal court process for people to flag potentially dangerous individuals and keep them from getting guns.

Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said Thursday he is "heartened" by the action the Florida Legislature has taken to stem gun violence following a school shooting last month that left 17 dead.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer said Thursday the Florida legislature's "positive" step toward tighten gun laws contrasts with the lack of action on Capitol Hill following one of the deadliest school shootings in the nation's history.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said Thursday the NRA has gone too far with the rhetoric it has used against proponents of gun control that the group believes is peddling lies about law-abiding gun owners and the Second Amendment.

Cops in Bonita Beach, Florida, are in hot pursuit of a bold and innovative robber who tried to hold up a 7-11 convenience store the other day with his finger. He made his getaway on a bicycle and the cops haven't yet found his hide-out.

Birmingham closed one of its largest schools for a thorough safety sweep Thursday after metal detectors and other security measures failed to keep students from handling a gun in a classroom where one 17-year-old was fatally shot and another wounded in an apparent accident.

The cast of ABC's Emmy-winning sitcom "Modern Family" appeared in a PSA released Wednesday by the pro-gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety, slamming the National Rifle Association and promoting an upcoming gun-control march in cities across the country.

A fundraiser established following the mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest musical festival in Las Vegas last fall has received nearly $31.5 million in donations slated for the families of victims killed and several hundred survivors.

The Democrat seeking to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas downplayed Wednesday the idea that his "F" rating with the NRA could undercut his hopes of toppling the incumbent Republican in the midterm election.

Gone are the often spontaneous political rallies of yore, when hippies and their ilk simply hit the streets for a cause. The upcoming March For Our Lives rallies planned around the nation in response to the Parkland school shooting last month are meticulously organized, bear carefully calibrated messages and boast vigorous social media.

The popular dating app Bumble announced Monday that it is hereby banning images of guns from people's profiles and will eventually wipe out any mention of guns in written content in the wake of the mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

The upcoming "March for our Lives" rallies planned in response to the Parkland student shootings last month are getting financial help from a well-organized activist group -- at the rate of $5,000 for each event.

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Recent Opinion Columns

Guns are big in Arkansas, but hogs and football can be bigger. The National Rifle Association took on the Razorbacks of the University of Arkansas over a law that would have enabled fans to take their guns to the game, and the Razorbacks won.

For decades the federal judiciary has been trying to interpret the Second Amendment out of the Constitution. It is, as Sanford Levinson has termed it, an "embarrassment" to an elite class of legal scholars that finds firearms to be unusual and repulsive objects. Now the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has declared that the semi-automatic AR-15 rifle is not covered by the Second Amendment, despite that fact that is the most common rifle sold in the United States. This execrable decision is the latest outrage in a long series of disingenuous judicial contortions.

Opponents of the Second Amendment have for years worked to prevent concealed carrying on college campuses across the country, repeatedly using ridiculous claims to limit the rights of students and campus employees to protect themselves and those around them.

On Dec. 2, as Islamic terrorists in combat gear strode into a San Bernardino Christmas party and began methodically executing Americans for their religious beliefs, the commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces started ruminating on all the political angles and consequences.

Last year, in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shootings in Connecticut, the Obama administration and then-New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg worked to put together a "coalition of the willing" to join them in a war on the Second Amendment and hit upon Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper as a likely recruit.

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Content presented by NRA Institute for Legislative Action

On Monday, March 19, the California Department of Justice (DOJ) will be hosting a public hearing on the proposed regulations regarding the serialization of home-built firearms. On Tuesday, March 20, there are several firearm-related bills scheduled to be heard in their respective policy committees.

“If they see a statue with a gun they’re going to think, ‘Okay, that’s appropriate, we can do that to our other schools,’” said Linda Virissimo, who lives in San Diego. “If other kids see that they’re going to think that’s okay for their schools to have a gun, but it’s not.”

From The Vault

A gunman died of his injuries hours after opening fire on a group of congressional Republicans practicing baseball in Alexandria Wednesday morning, wounding a senior GOP lawmaker, an aide and two police officers.

Katie Couric and others associated with the anti-gun documentary "Under the Gun" have been cleared in a $12 million lawsuit over an allegedly deceptive interview edit that a Virginia gun-rights group said amounted to defamation.

This is the unfortunate story of the killing of a young man named Seth Conrad Rich, a Nebraska-born and -reared young man whose death by two gunshots has resulted in conspiracy theories of the worst kind.

President Trump on Friday became the first sitting U.S. president since Ronald Reagan to speak at the National Rifle Association's annual convention, pledging to "come through" for gun-rights activists like they did for him last year.

Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president and CEO of the National Rifle Association, on Friday told gun-rights activists they have to do their best to support President Trump because "leftist zealots" and elites are determined to tear him down.

It is a timely, revealing book -- to be released just as the 2016 election season peaks, and races to a conclusion. "Shall Not Be Infringed: The New Assaults on Your Second Amendment," by David A. Keene and Thomas L. Mason, will be published Oct. 11.

House Democrats wrapped up a daylong sit-in Thursday without winning concessions on gun control, leaving town empty-handed after Republicans accused them of co-opting the chamber floor for a "publicity stunt" designed to fill party coffers.

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What Gun Rights Voters Want In 2016: Download the special report prepared by The Washington Times Advocacy Department available in the May 20, 2015, edition of The Washington Times. (1.2 MB)

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Veterans and the Rise of Shooting Sports - Special Report: Download the Special Report (including a compendium of state laws governing firearms) prepared by The Washington Times Advocacy Department, available in the December 17, 2014, edition of The Washington Times. (3.0 MB)

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Law Enforcement Who Support Guns - Special Report: Download the Special Report (including a compendium of state laws governing firearms) prepared by The Washington Times Advertising Department, available in the August 27, 2014, edition of The Washington Times. (2.4 MB)

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Women, Guns and Shooting Sports - Commemorative Section: Download the commemorative section (including a compendium of state laws governing firearms), available in the April 24, 2014, edition of The Washington Times. (3.7 MB)

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Your Guide to the Second Amendment - Special Supplement: Download the supplement (including a State by State Compendium of Laws Governing Firearms), available in the July 31, 2013, edition of The Washington Times. (4 MB)